Air India on Thursday launched the country’s first ‘Easy Connect’ flight from Varanasi under the government’s new hub-and-spoke aviation model, allowing passengers to complete immigration formalities at their originating airport before transiting through Delhi. Civil Aviation Minister K Ram Mohan Naidu inaugurated the maiden service from Varanasi’s Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport.
How the Easy Connect model works
Under the new system, passengers can check in their baggage through to their final international destination at their originating airport and complete immigration procedures before departure. This eliminates the need to collect and re-check baggage or undergo fresh immigration checks at transit hubs like Delhi. The first flight, AI1111, departed Varanasi at 9:23 am with passengers travelling onwards to Dubai, Colombo, Jeddah, Riyadh, Kathmandu and Phuket.
Officials said the initiative aims to simplify international travel for passengers from tier-II and tier-III cities that lack direct overseas connections, while encouraging more travellers to use Indian airports as transit hubs instead of foreign airports in the Gulf or Southeast Asia.
Government vision and expansion plans
Addressing the launch event, Naidu said the hub-and-spoke framework would fundamentally change how Indians travel internationally by allowing passengers to begin their journey from their hometown and connect seamlessly to destinations worldwide. He noted that India’s aviation infrastructure has expanded rapidly, with operational airports increasing from 74 in 2014 to more than 160 today. The minister also announced that six more airports would be brought under the Easy Connect model within the next six weeks.
Air India said Varanasi is the first spoke city integrated into the system, with more cities to follow in phases over the coming months. The airline plans to roll out Easy Connect services from Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Chennai, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kochi, Mumbai, Patna, Vadodara and Visakhapatnam, connecting them with its major hubs in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Impact on international travel patterns
Air India Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Campbell Wilson said millions of Indians travelling overseas continue to transit through foreign airports despite India’s growing aviation market. According to the airline, nearly 25 million passengers travel long-haul to and from India every year, and around 20 million of them are connecting travellers. Of these, nearly 17 million currently use overseas hubs rather than Indian airports for onward international connections.
Wilson said the Easy Connect model aims to reverse that trend by allowing travellers from cities such as Varanasi and Amritsar to begin and complete much of their international journey within India’s aviation network.
Connectivity and requirements
Air India said flight AI1111 from Varanasi to Delhi currently offers onward connections to 17 international destinations within four hours of arrival in the national capital, including London, Rome, Milan, Frankfurt, Zurich, Dubai, Riyadh and Jeddah. Passengers travelling under the new framework will be required to enrol on DigiYatra and upload their boarding passes before departure to use the seamless transit facility. Customs declarations and web check-in facilities will not be available at spoke airports during the initial phase of the rollout.
